We are the future
Tuesday’s are Tuesday’s, even here at the UN Conference in NYC. The delegates spent over nine hours in committee sessions on this long day.
The day started with the head delegates meeting at 7:30am which Kelly and I attended. At this meeting we are able to express our comments and/or concerns with how the conference is running. Delightfully, the conference is very professional and organized so there was not a lot of criticism at the meeting. One thing I did bring up though, is that the committee rooms were running out of water, now we can’t go depriving our delegates of food and water! This problem was solved immediately, as I saw staff refilling the water multiple times throughout the day.
Committee sessions began at 8:30am and the delegates were once again, working diligently side-by-side with other member states. Finland was great at forming caucusing blocs with their regional partners such as Russia, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and other European Nations. We could not be more proud of how Finland is remaining in in character and exercising their diplomacy skills. Our two delegates sitting on the General Assembly Plenary were so much in character, of being peacekeepers, they were able to get North Korea to sign a Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, one that South Korea had already signed! What a resolution!
After a the morning and afternoon committee sessions we broke for an hour to attend a variation of informative speakers who had been asked to attend by the faculty. We could chose where to go, a few of us attended the Disarmament Panel with speakers including Henry Lague, who is the Disarmament Coordinator at the World Federation of UN Associates, Daniel Prins, the Chief of the Conventional Arms Branch of the UN Office for Disarmament Affiars, and Rhianna Tyson, the Senior Officer for the Global Security Institute. Others attended a speech given by Hina Shamsi, a Staff Attorny in the ACLU who was speaking on Human Rights and International Law.
I, myself along with four others attended a speech on Nuclear Weapons, a survivor story of Hiroshima. Mrs. Hideko Tamura Snider was a child when the atomic bomb went off in Hiroshima. She had a great story to tell. I left the room with tears in my eyes and courage around my heart. She really motivated us delegates to get out there and advocate peace all around the world.
That is a reason why this program is so necessary. If available, every student should participate as a model UN delegate. This conference brings together students from all over the world, students who will soon be the future. We practice diplomacy early with one another and learn the key of success is cooperation. Hopefully it will be all of us delegates filling up the seats of the UN in the years to come. Maybe then we really can start achieving world peace.
The day ended with another yet another committee session, and more progress made by the delgation from Finland. :o)